Question for TWC NYC customers, how much are you paying for your cable cards? I was looking to get two tivos so i need 4 cards, and supposedly TWC has a wierd pricing plan.

Click to expand...

If you can afford two S3 units, the monthly charge for 4 cable cards shouldn't be a deal breaker:

As of 4/1/07, it's $1.75 per card, plus $2.00 outlet fee per Tivo box. That adds up to $11.00. Subtract the monthly charge for each cable box that is returned to TWC and you should come to about $5.10/month additional after the cards are installed.

There's a one-time installation fee of about $40, reasonable considering how many times they'll be coming to your place to get these to work, unless they've gotten their act together in the last 3 months, which i doubt.

Examine your cable bill the following month. TWCNYC tried to double-bill for the outlet charges: its $2.00 per S3 box, NOT $2.00 per card as they tried to charge.

$1.85 for "DTV Add'l Set" (I'm not sure how that relates to the "@ $2.50" that I see; maybe it's for the partial month)

That's $6.28 per card, for a total of $12.56; presumably it will be more when I have to pay for a full month. That sounds like a lot, doesn't it?

I understand from T-Shee's post that I should challenge at least one of the double charges (for the "cable card addl outlet," I guess), but what's with the other double charge, for the "DTV add'l set"? Does anyone have any insight into these charges? I have searched TWC's not-very-helpful website and cannot find anything there.
____

P.S. BTW, I did not turn in my set-top box. I had them split the cable to the tv and run it to a second tv in my bedroom. I use the set-top box on that tv, with my old S2 TiVo. The fee for that set-top box is included in my $99.95 Entertainet Pack. (According to my online statement, that $99.95 covers "Basic Service, Remote(s) @ $0.25 Ea, Standard Service, Converter(s) @ $7.40 Ea, ., DTV, Road Runner Online Svc.")

i'm in dallas/fort worth with time-warner. the tech came late in the day on wednesday.

after some hassle and general clueless behavior on the part of both the field tech and the dispatcher, the tivo recognized both cards eventually in spite of their best efforts in the opposite direction.

one card worked perfectly although i did have to call to get 4 hd tier channels activated again. i'm pretty sure the other card worked perfectly also, but i can't be absolutely sure. i spent about 3 hours tweaking and setting up future recordings.

at some point after midnight i realized the 2nd card wasn't showing premium channels and i called back in and was on the phone with the tier 1 support off and on for 6 hours. at some point early in the morning i decided a good move would be to use the tivo function to wipe everything out and start over.

bad move. after that, neither card will show premium channels and, for some reason that seems random to me, also about a dozen or two channels in other tiers that aren't encrypted--for instance, about half of the digital kid channels.

after much research my guess is that this cleared out some of the original authentication/encryption keys and i spent all day thursday trying to find someone authorized to redo things from scratch. time warner will just absolutely refuse to let such person work directly with the customer it seems. if we had unions here i'd swear it's some halfarsed way to protect the techs who have nothing to do in this process except read a couple of strings of numbers correctly.

early thursday morning the dallas center told me i could go to the cable office in arlington and pick up two new cable cards. but when i arrived they refused to provide any. they did promise to have a tech do a 'go-back' between 4 and 6pm, but no tech showed up. i called dallas again and two different supervisors promised to have someone capable of performing this operation from scratch who had complete authority call me back. no one ever did.

what a bunch of farked up hosebags. i reminded them that i had paid them $130 a month for years and yet when i ask for support i get lies and the bums rush. unfortunately i'm unable to get satellite service, so i can't even threaten to leave.

anyone who is considering the tivo s3 needs to not need the service. in other words, keep what you have until (or, better, if...) you get cablecard working. you will pay out the nose for the tivo box and pay more for the service and when you ask tivo for help they claim they are at the mercy of the cable company. someone needs to remind them that their sales are at the mercy of the cable company if they continue to refuse responsibility for helping folks get the service installed.

[W]hen you ask tivo for help they claim they are at the mercy of the cable company. someone needs to remind them that their sales are at the mercy of the cable company if they continue to refuse responsibility for helping folks get the service installed./guy

Click to expand...

I empathize with your problems with Time Warner Cable; I have had three installers come out, and I have yet to get all the channels I should be getting. But my experience with TiVo Support has been good, so far at least.

After the last installer left, having given up trying to get the cards to work the way they should, I called TiVo Support and asked whether they would be willing to help the next installer (scheduled to come here tomorrow). They said absolutely, and that they do that often. They will talk the installer through the entire process, troubleshoot, explain things like the Diagnostic Screen, etc..

My concern is not with TiVo, but that the TWC installer will not agree to deal with TiVo. Every installer who has been here so far has refused to even look at the TiVo instruction sheet, insisting they know what they're doing. Which is just ridiculous, because if they knew what they were doing, how come my cable cards STILL don't pick up all the channels I subscribe to?

Has anyone here had TiVo Support work, over the phone, with the TWC installers? If so, how did it go?

I empathize with your problems with Time Warner Cable; I have had three installers come out, and I have yet to get all the channels I should be getting. But my experience with TiVo Support has been good, so far at least.

After the last installer left, having given up trying to get the cards to work the way they should, I called TiVo Support and asked whether they would be willing to help the next installer (scheduled to come here tomorrow). They said absolutely, and that they do that often. They will talk the installer through the entire process, troubleshoot, explain things like the Diagnostic Screen, etc..

My concern is not with TiVo, but that the TWC installer will not agree to deal with TiVo. Every installer who has been here so far has refused to even look at the TiVo instruction sheet, insisting they know what they're doing. Which is just ridiculous, because if they knew what they were doing, how come my cable cards STILL don't pick up all the channels I subscribe to?

Has anyone here had TiVo Support work, over the phone, with the TWC installers? If so, how did it go?

Click to expand...

i was told the menus that contain the diagnostics are generated by the cablecards (it seems to be true) and thus tivo knows nothing about what is in those menus. what a load of crap! i was on the phone nearly two hours arguing with a nice lady at tivo who would not budge that no one at tivo who knew anything about those screens and cablecards in general was available to talk to customers.

i was told the menus that contain the diagnostics are generated by the cablecards (it seems to be true) and thus tivo knows nothing about what is in those menus. what a load of crap! i was on the phone nearly two hours arguing with a nice lady at tivo who would not budge that no one at tivo who knew anything about those screens and cablecards in general was available to talk to customers.

/guy

Click to expand...

I believe Tivo is telling you that the content of the Cablecard 'CP' menu's are beyond their control. That content is 'owned' by the cableco and their equipment providers.

They should be reasonabally aware of what is in them though.... However, the content and meaning of that content varies from provider to provider... like Comcast.. some require pairing and some dont... If Tivo starts making assumptions and takes actions relative to those menus.. its gonna bite them so they likely dont want to get involved in those menus at all.

I have TWC here in Cincinnati and they added Universal HD yesterday to cover the Masters in HD. However, the channel is not showing up on my S3. Is there something I need to do to get it to show up? I've had the S3 connect back to Tivo hoping for an updated channel lineup....but nothing. Any ideas?

The S3 won't let me do a channel scan...it says that is only when I have an antenna connected or when I don't have cablecards installed. I'll call TWC now....is there something specific I should ask them to do or just ask to have my cards "rehit"?
Thanks.

I had been in a correspondence with Guy ("GTeague") but I thought I'd share this warning to anyone in the DFW area with an A/B dual input cable line (which applies to most of the Dallas Metroplex, at least currently). Hopefully this can be useful for anybody considering a S3 purchase (as I will now have to send my unit back 2 days after placing my order). This problem was alluded to by username "box646" on page 7 of this thread back in September, but it's actually even worse than described there -- see below:

I'm in the Dallas area (near downtown in the Turtle Creek area). Unfortunately, I realize now that I will be forced to return the Tivo unit and get a refund. I have been living in areas with the A/B switch (dual line input). If for some reason you're not familiar with this evil scourge, it renders suboptimal any dvr that you may purchase (i currently use a replay tv unit) because the available channels are split on A and B. Most of the "good" channels are on A but there are some very relevant channels (espn2, comedy, fx, history, and many more) that are on B. If I want my replaytv unit to record something on B, somebody needs to be home turn a switch from A to B and back to A after the program is done -- obviously impossible. So I simply miss out on B channels. I have had a cable box with digital cable in the past (during a free trial) and that did not require A/B switching (all channels were available without a switch, which is what happens in the normal world). I guess it was a naive of me, but I had simply assumed that cable cards would be the same way, but unfortunately it is not (you still have the A/B switch). I was even willing to tolerate that until they get rid of this A/B system (which they have been promising for years but apparently is really happening finally at some point in november '07 -- don't hold your breath though), but I found out tonight that ALL of the HD channels (NBC, ABC, CBS, etc) as well as any premium (HBO) and in-demand (e.g. NBA League Pass) are on the B side. So that basically makes the Tivo useless. I now have to get the TWC crappy dvr (so that I can maintain basic cable on my other TV's and still use my replaytv, which is not compatible with satellite) and return the Tivo unit. Unfortunately the S3 Tivo unit is not worth it at this time, and at least I'm happy I realized this before I opened the box. If they get rid of this A/B crap anytime before the early fall, I may think about jumping to Tivo again. The only silver lining is that maybe by the time they get the A/B merged, the S3 price will have dropped some more (currently about $600).

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet. Perhaps it's just a local (Los Angeles) promotion?

This weekend HBO and Cinemax are having free previews. Including HBO HD and CinemaxHD. I'm not currently a subscriber to either of these, but I was able to tune in just fine this morning, I set up my S3 to record/cache a few upcoming movies to enjoy for the future. Also set it up to record the season premiere of Entourage.

I saw mention of this a few months ago in my cable bill... and sure enough, this weekend it's in effect. I'm not sure why TWC didn't promote it more effectively. But there you have it.

Has anyone had any luck with the TiVo S3 and TWC cable service? A CSR told me that I would not get any channels above 99 (HD Channels are located in the 500's). I just want to know if buying a TiVo S3 is worth it with the TWC service.

Another option is AT&T if this service in Wisconsin ever gets the go ahead, but we need to wait and see about this.

I had a Time Warner guy come out to install new service. He hooked up a Motorola DVR (which works but is really frickin' noisy) and a standard box (to use with my S2 unit) and two cablecards for my S3. When he walked in with the boxes, he slammed them down on the floor. Not a good sign. Then I told him my TiVo needed to connect to the internet to get info before I could insert the cable cards. So he connected my new cable modem first, then I finished guided setup while he hooked up the two cable company boxes.

So I showed him the sheet about cable card installs in the S3, but he didn't seem to feel like reading it. He says he has never seen a S3 before, and has only put cards into TV sets. This is when I knew I needed to try and take over the setup of the S3. I got ahold of the cablecards and made him go thru the steps. The cablecards looked like they had been already used... not a good sign.

We put in the first card and tried to activate it. Got a 161-something error. Uh-oh. Tried with the other card. Same thing. Tried both cards in slot two. Neither one worked. He says the dispatcher will not give him extra cards, so he has no more to try. I agreed to have someone come back out another day and try again.

Here's the thing. I discovered that the new place has an additional coax connector on the wall that apparently runs to an OTA antenna somewhere. I get all of my locals OTA perfectly through this. I think I may just cancel the cablecard nonsense and use the S3 for OTA and analog cable, and use the Motorola POS for digital cable. (I'm gonna try to swap it for a box that doesn't sound like the hard drive is dying, though.) I don't really care about the 4 channels (or whatever it is) that I need cablecards to receive.

With the money I will save without using the cablecards and additional "outlet" (pure BS) I can basically pay for 3 years of service on my S2 box. The few programs I can't get on the S3 will appear on their crapola DVR.

The whole thing still costs less than DirecTV + a DSL line, even with the TiVo fees.

I'm in the Dallas area (near downtown in the Turtle Creek area). Unfortunately, I realize now that I will be forced to return the Tivo unit and get a refund. I have been living in areas with the A/B switch (dual line input). If for some reason you're not familiar with this evil scourge, it renders suboptimal any dvr that you may purchase (i currently use a replay tv unit) because the available channels are split on A and B. Most of the "good" channels are on A but there are some very relevant channels (espn2, comedy, fx, history, and many more) that are on B. If I want my replaytv unit to record something on B, somebody needs to be home turn a switch from A to B and back to A after the program is done -- obviously impossible. So I simply miss out on B channels. I have had a cable box with digital cable in the past (during a free trial) and that did not require A/B switching (all channels were available without a switch, which is what happens in the normal world). I guess it was a naive of me, but I had simply assumed that cable cards would be the same way, but unfortunately it is not (you still have the A/B switch). I was even willing to tolerate that until they get rid of this A/B system (which they have been promising for years but apparently is really happening finally at some point in november '07 -- don't hold your breath though), but I found out tonight that ALL of the HD channels (NBC, ABC, CBS, etc) as well as any premium (HBO) and in-demand (e.g. NBA League Pass) are on the B side. So that basically makes the Tivo useless. I now have to get the TWC crappy dvr (so that I can maintain basic cable on my other TV's and still use my replaytv, which is not compatible with satellite) and return the Tivo unit. Unfortunately the S3 Tivo unit is not worth it at this time, and at least I'm happy I realized this before I opened the box. If they get rid of this A/B crap anytime before the early fall, I may think about jumping to Tivo again. The only silver lining is that maybe by the time they get the A/B merged, the S3 price will have dropped some more (currently about $600).

Click to expand...

I lived with a CableCard and B-side only on input to my HDTV for several months. I am in Richardson and was lucky enough to be in the first area upgraded to single-line, about the same time that the S3 came out last fall. Since October, I have been box-free with the S3.

FYI, the A-side is analog channels only, so you should be able to get all the digital channels from the B-side and into the S3. In my case, I had an S2 TiVo and an HD box so I could get all the channels but only had true HD from the TV - no DVR features - until the upgrade.

...Here's the thing. I discovered that the new place has an additional coax connector on the wall that apparently runs to an OTA antenna somewhere. I get all of my locals OTA perfectly through this. I think I may just cancel the cablecard nonsense and use the S3 for OTA and analog cable, and use the Motorola POS for digital cable. (I'm gonna try to swap it for a box that doesn't sound like the hard drive is dying, though.) I don't really care about the 4 channels (or whatever it is) that I need cablecards to receive.

With the money I will save without using the cablecards and additional "outlet" (pure BS) I can basically pay for 3 years of service on my S2 box. The few programs I can't get on the S3 will appear on their crapola DVR.

The whole thing still costs less than DirecTV + a DSL line, even with the TiVo fees.

Click to expand...

Where are you located in DFW? I assume you are in an area with the single line upgrade. The reason I ask is because the pricing structure is changing. Until last month, I was still on my old billing plan with $5.95 outlet fees and $0 CableCard costs. Recently, when they encrypted the 2 new HD channels they added at the end of last year (HDNet and UHD), plus 2 that I had been getting (ESPN and InHD) and moved them to the new $3/mo HD Tier, I called to complain. The rep then gave me a new bundled package - "Watch N' Surf Bundle" with Digital Cable + Internet for a reduced rate. The total cost was lower so I took it. Now my bill is showing $2.95 for each CC but no additional outlet fees. Overall, my monthly cost went down about $12 with this instead of up by $3 and that's on top of the $13/mo I saved when I added the S3 and returned my HD box.

What? Who said S3 would only tune up to ch 99? I have S3 with TWC and TWC provides cablecards which allow S3 to tune all digital channels, particularly the HD ones! Otherwise what would be the purpose of having cablecard slots!

Ordering: the CSR on the phone was very accomodating to me ordering the cable cards (I said "I need to order 2 cable cards") and gave me my new bill total and scheduled the installer to come out ($11 install, $2.95 per card).

Install: the installer was knowledgeable in CCs and overall knew what he was doing. He had trouble with the TiVo remote (couldn't find Select or Clear) but overall knew what he was doing.

The whole process took about 45 minutes from start to finish; they installer had to request the hits a couple times and had to repeat all the numbers over and over again (which made me start to feel like it wasn't going to work) and eventually the CCs started receiving channels.

He left, I repeated guided setup (I had it working in analog mode for a week) and lo and behold I'm getting all my HDs and Cable channels (well at least all that I usually try to watch).

Overall I had a great experience, 6+ months after TiVo hit the streets.